through its undoubted power to impose different taxes upon different trades and professions; and imposing a license tax on meat packing houses is not an arbitrary and unreasonable classification which will render the tax void under the Fourteenth Amendment, as denying the equal protection of the laws. Nor is it a denial of equal protection of the law because the tax is not imposed on persons not doing a meat packing house business but selling products thereof, or because it is not imposed on persons engaged in packing articles of food other than meat. Where the highest court of the State has so construed the act, a foreign corporation selling its products in the State, but whose packing establishments are not situated in the State, is not for that reason exempt from such a license tax.

The court will not interfere with the conclusion expressed by the highest court of the State that under the provisions of the state constitution a tax is uniform when it is equal upon all persons belonging to the described class upon which it is imposed.

THIS was "a controversy without action," submitted in accordance with the laws of North Carolina in that behalf, in the Superior Court of Buncombe County, that State, in which B. R. Lacy, Treasurer of North Carolina, was plaintiff, and Armour Packing Company was defendant.

By the revenue law of North Carolina of March 9, 1903, Public Laws, N. Car., p. 323, c. 247, it is provided in Schedule B:

"SEC. 26. Defining taxes under this schedule. Taxes in this schedule shall be imposed as license tax for the privilege of carrying on the business or doing the act named, and nothing in this act contained shall be construed to relieve any person or corporation from the payment of tax as required in the preceding schedule.

"SEC. 56..Packing houses. Upon every meat packing house doing business in this State, one hundred dollars for each county in which said business is carried on."

"SEC. 88. Unless prohibited, county may levy same license tax as State. In case where a specific license tax is levied for the privilege of carrying on any business, trade or profession the county may levy the same tax, and no more: Provided, no provision to the contrary is made in the section levying the specific license tax."

Section 107 of chapter 251 of Public Laws of 1903 (p. 407), reads:

"SEC. 107. State Treasurer to sue for taxes. Upon failure to pay to the State Treasurer within thirty days after the same shall have become due, any tax which by law is made payable direct to the State Treasurer, it shall be his duty to institute an action to enforce the same in the county of Wake, or in the county in which the property taxed is located."

The third section of article V of the constitution of North Carolina provides:

"Laws shall be passed taxing, by uniform rule, all moneys, credits, investments in bonds, stocks, joint stock companies, or otherwise; . . The general assembly may also tax trades, professions, franchises, and incomes,

It appeared from the facts agreed, as in substance stated by the Supreme Court of North Carolina, that the Armour Packing Company was incorporated in New Jersey, but has its principal office and place of business in Kansas, that business being "a meat packing house business," and that it has property in North Carolina; that "a meat packing house is a place where the business of slaughtering animals and dressing and preparing the products of their carcasses for food and other purposes is carried on. The products thus prepared consist of fresh and cured meats, such as hams, dry salt sides, bacon, lard, beef extracts, glue, blood, tankage, etc." That the Armour Packing Company "does not anywhere within the State of North Carolina slaughter, dress, cure, pack or manufacture any products hereinbefore set forth, of any animal, for food, or for commercial use, or for other purposes;" but that after the animals are slaughtered, dressed and prepared for food or other commercial purposes in Kansas, such product is shipped in bulk to Wilmington, Greensboro, Asheville, Charlotte and Fayetteville, N. C., where the company has cold storage plants and warehouses, and sold from such storage plants, some of such product to parties in North Carolina and some to parties outside of that State; that part of said products shipped to

200 U.S.

Argument for Plaintiff in Error.

the cold storage warehouse in Asheville, Buncombe County, remain there until disposed of in due course of trade on orders taken and received after said products have been stored or placed in said warehouse or cold storage plants. At each of said five points in North Carolina, where the company maintains a warehouse and cold storage plants, it has one or more employés, i. e., bookkeepers, stenographers, shipping clerks, salesmen, drivers, laborers who box said meats and who wrap and crate goods for delivery as they are sold. There are in Wilmington and other cities of said State commission merchants, brokers and butchers who sell by wholesale and retail in competition with the Armour Packing Company, who are not engaged in a meat packing-house business in North Carolina or elsewhere, fresh, cured and salt meats and other products that have been manufactured from the carcasses of slaughtered animals for food and commercial purposes, and under the laws of North Carolina said commission merchants, brokers and butchers are not amenable to the tax levied under section 56 of said revenue act of 1903. At all points in North Carolina where the Armour Packing Company is engaged in business, and at various other places in said State, there are engaged in business, as the Armour Packing Company is engaged, packing houses which pack articles of food other than meat and offer them for sale in said State, such as peas, beans, tomatoes, corn, pumpkins, fruit, fish, oysters, etc. The products of said packing houses are articles of food and commerce and are sold in the State of North Carolina through agents, brokers, wholesale and retail merchants, just as the products. packed by the Armour Packing Company are sold.

The ruling of the court was invoked on certain points stated, all of which were adjudged adversely to defendant, and judgment was rendered against it for the tax and costs, which was affirmed by the Supreme Court of North Carolina. 134 N. Car. 567.

Mr. Thomas B. Felder, Jr. for plaintiff in error: Corporations are persons within the provisions of the Four

Argument for Plaintiff in Error.

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teenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Ry., 118 U. S. 394; Pembina Mining Co. v. Pennsylvania, 125 U. S. 181, 189; Missouri Pacific Ry. v. Mackey, 127 U. S. 205; Minn. & St. L. Ry. v. Herrick, 127 U. S. 210; Minn. & St. L. Ry. v. Beckwith, 129 U. S. 26; Charlotte & Col. R. R. v. Gibbs, 142 U. S. 386; Turnpike Co. v. Sanford, 164 U. S. 578.

A State has no more power to deny to corporations the equal protection of the law than it has to individual citizens. Gulf, Col. & S. F. Ry. v. Ellis, 165 U. S. 154.

A tax on the privilege of selling goods is in effect a tax on the goods themselves. 117 Georgia, 969; Welton v. Missouri, 91 U. S. 275; Brown v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419.

What must constitute a denial of the equal protection of the law, will depend in this view, in a large measure upon what rights have been guaranteed under the constitution of the State. N. C. & St. L. Ry. v. Taylor, 86 Fed. Rep. 186.

Uniformity in taxation has been guaranteed by the constitution and laws of North Carolina. See 2 Code of 1883, 706; State v. Moore, 113 N. Car. 697; Worth v. Railroad Co., 89 N. Car. 291; Pruitt v. Commissioners, 94 N. Car. 709; Railroad Tax Case, 92 U. S. 575; State v. Powell, 100 N. Car. 525; Tiedeman Lim. of Police Power 1, 101; Cooley Taxation, 403; Re Jacobs, 98 N. Y. 98; Cooley Const. Lim. 201, 494, 574; Kansas City v. Crush, 151 Missouri, 135; St. Louis v. Sternberg, 69 Missouri, 289; St. Louis v. Speigel, 75 Missouri, 145; Dillon Mun. Corp., § 768; Ward v. Maryland, 12 Wall. 418.

There must be no discrimination between members of a class. Home Ins. Co. v. New York, 134 U. S. 606; Grozza v. Turnan, 148 U. S. 662. The States have the power of classification subject to rule that classification must not be arbitrary or on unreasonable grounds. Magoun v. Illinois Trust Co., 170 U. S. 298; Atchison Railway v. Matthews, 174 U. S. 156; Cargill Co. v. Minnesota, distinguished.

The act is a burden on interstate commerce. Allen v. Pullman Co., 191 U. S. 171.

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Argument for Defendant in Error.

Mr. Robert D. Gilmer, Attorney General of the State of North Carolina, for defendant in error:

The Supreme Court of North Carolina has declared that the statute applies solely to business within North Carolina, and that it does not apply to or affect any interstate business; the statute does not violate the commerce clause of the Constitution. The act does not contravene the constitution of the State, sec. 3, art. V of the constitution of North Carolina, that taxation shall be by uniform rule ad valorem applies only to the tax upon property, for it also provides that the General Assembly may also tax trades without any requirement of uniformity as to the latter. Gatlin v. Tarboro, 78 N. Car. 119. A tax on trades is uniform when it is equal upon all persons belonging to the described class upon which it is imposed. Burroughs on Taxation, §77; State v. Stevenson, 109 N. Car. 730.

The legislature possesses the power to classify occupations by statutory enactment, and classification in tax statutes will not contravene the rule of uniformity when the tax is imposed alike upon all of a class. Albertson v. Wallace, 81 N. Car. 479; State v. Cohen, 84 N. Car. 771; State v. Powell, 100 N. Car. 525; State v. French, 109 N. Car. 722; Cobb v. Commissioners, 122 N. Car. 307; State v. Green, 126 N. Car. 1032; State v. Carter, 129 N. Car. 560; State v. Hunt, 129 N. Car. 686; State v. Roberson, 136 N. Car. 587.

The General Assembly had the power to create as a classification for taxation "meat packing houses" as a separate and distinct class. Ford v. State, 112 Indiana, 373, 378; Stewart v. Atlanta Beef Co., 93 Georgia, 12; Stewart v. Kehrer, 115 Georgia, 184.

The decision of the state court that the act does not contravene the constitution of North Carolina is conclusive. Duncan v, McCall, 139 U. S. 449; Leeper v. Texas, 139 U. S. 462; O'Neill v. Vermont, 144 U. S. 323; McNulty v. California, 149 U. S. 645; Lambert v. Barrett, 157 U. S. 697; Bergemann v. Backer, 157 U. S. 655; Kohl v. Lehlbach, 160 U. S. 293; Howard v. Fleming, 191 U. S. 126.